As we went home on the Fourth of July, there was a light rain. Little did we know that we’d get much more rain before it stopped.
The night of Monday, July 5th, the rain started and didn’t stop until the morning of the 9th.
Tuesday morning
I drew an arrow to where we were in Rockport, which was smack dab in the middle of where the storm was headed.
We still didn’t realize what were in for. This rain was not a gentle rain, but a constant noise. Having lived in Oregon for over 3 decades, we were used to rain – but not this non-stop heavy rain.
Wednesday morning
In hindsight, this is the morning we should have left the RV park. We actually discussed it briefly around 8-9 a.m., but decided to wait and see. By noon, it was too late.
And then we looked at the radar:
But it got worse if you zoomed out the radar. This storm was huge.
Though you can’t see it, the bottom of the radar shows Brownsville, TX, which is near the border with Mexico.
If you look closely at this windshield photo, you’ll see a blue line running through the middle. This is the hose that is carrying water out of the RV park into an overflow area.
This spot was all but empty when we arrived in Rockport. By the time the rain was done and we got out of the RV park, they had to switch to a secondary overflow area, because the water (and the neverending rain) meant that the water collected here was coming back INTO the RV park.
Thursday morning
Trapped in the RV park, we received an email from the RV park telling us not to empty our tanks. This meant “boondocking” measures were now in effect: very short showers and minimal dishes. We did a lot of cold foods (sandwiches, etcetera) that we could serve on paper towels. The good thing is that we had suspected this might happen, so we had filled our fresh water tank on Wednesday, and dumped our gray and black water tanks also, so we were starting with almost empty tanks.
Friday morning
Then we waited for the water to recede. The next post will include more photos and video, and us leaving the RV park.
